Last Week to Lock in $7.99 per Month Price Tag for Google Play Music All Access

If procrastinating and waiting till the last minute is your MO, then be aware that time is running out to lock in the $8/month price tag for All Access, Google’s music streaming service. Introduced at Google I/O back in May, many folks have already cancelled other streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify in favor of All Access, allowing them to bring all of their subscription services under one roof. Once July starts, the service will cost new subscribers $10 a month. Not that bad, but still $2 more than early adopters.

And remember, you receive 30 days free to try it out and see what you’re missing out on when you sign up.

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grazilla

found a game changer… an app that allows you to take Google all access music offline permanently. http://songspout.com

ohNOOOOOOOO

I’ve noticed that the playlist feature is sometimes messed up. It would delete songs in a playlist and the songs would be added back again the next time I use it. Inversely, a bunch of songs would be deleted from a playlist at times.

ShangTsung702

I’ve tried this. It still doesn’t beat Spotify. Sorry, Google. 🙁

Royal2000H

If I start trial now… then don’t go to paid. I assume I won’t be offered the 7.99 again right? (Even though I had the trial)

cbkcc1

still like Slacker better

cgalyon

I liked some of the features on All Access, but found the service buggy (playing tracks that I had given a thumbs down, opening the wrong playlist, displaying information for the wrong song…). I’m not going to subscribe to it yet. I’m confident they’ll improve it, and it’ll suck to miss out on the lower price, but I think it’s too much to pay for a beta service.

dabeham

If I get in now but cancel after 1 month will I be grandfathered in at that price if I sign back up at a later date?

Derek Ross

The feature I really think this service is missing is the ability for a certain number of “free” purchases each month, even if it was just 3 or so. I really struggle with the idea that I could subscribe to this service for 10 years, at a cost of $960… and if I discontinue service I have absolutely nothing to show for it. All of that music is gone. They have the infrastructure to support this functionality because this service is tied into their regular play store, but probably won’t.

Overall I really like the service. There are a few issues with the GUI, most notably as already mentioned is the lack of the ability to delete an entire album from your library. It makes library cleanup a real pain. Also, I’ve noticed several bugs where I’ve added something to a playlist but right clicking doesn’t reflect that.

I’m just not sure I will continue to subscribe when I can’t actually keep any of it. Using it feels more like an easy way to discover new music, but a bad way to keep it in your private collection. I could nearly as easily discover new music with Pandora, then spend my $8 towards 6-8 songs on iTunes or similar service and that music is mine forever.

Mr E

I agree the idea of spending all that money, and then not “owning” anything is unsettling, but that’s not what it’s about. For what it’s worth, you can just as easily buy music on the Play store too.

Derek Ross

Yeah I realize that, but there have been services just like this in the past that have given you “free” purchases included in the monthly rate. My thing is (and I suspect many here feel the same) that renting music is a very strange and shortsighted practice. Is the idea that I’m going to subscribe to Google All Access for the rest of my life? I can already say that clearly won’t happen. It’s very unsettling not owning anything, because something you love can be gone tomorrow because of contractual changes or otherwise. Then where are you? Sure you can purchase it on the play store, but that just makes the $8 I’m already paying a month seem worthless. Why not just drop the $8 subscription and actually buy the music? That’s the dilemma I (and probably many others) are currently asking themselves, as the practice of renting the music doesn’t seem sustainable to me.

chris420o

couldnt agree with you more…i had the trial and it tried to auto pay me and i had to get a new dc bc i lost mine and i havent updated it on google and it declined it and i found out originally bc when i went on play all access all my music was gone i was like wtf? honestly i hate this cloud nonsense i want to be able to play my music high quality w.e without needed to kill battery n data…now dotn get me wrong i loved it while i had it the library was way better then i thought id be and it had a lot of new songs i searched for n i it was super easy n convient…but now all i wanna do is see my lib i made n go download the songs elsewhere

Tojen1981

Pretty meh on it at this point. There’s a bad bug on the lg optimus g they need to work out. Also, it can be a pain to pin songs to your device, though its getting better. Would be nice to be able to delete entire albums from your library instead of having to do it song by song.I’ll probably keep it until Amazon gets into the streaming music game.

Chris Batson

I also never thought I would pay for a music service but i’ve been pretty impressed. It needs a few more fixes and features but overall it works great. Been very impressed with the new releases also.

is this for streaming only? i assume i can download songs for use on CDs or anything like that? and if i build a playlist and then stop subscribing, all songs in that playlist i dont own will disappear?

starnovsky

Correct. Streaming only, with ability to cache offline. But once you unsubscribe music will become unavailable.

I believe you can use the add to library option and if you ever wanted to unsubscribe just use the Google Music desktop app to download entire library (it should include the All Access content as long as you haven’t let the subscription lapse yet.)

PhoenixPath

$7.99 for streaming only, but you can offline cache an incredible amount of music (Pin the “thumbs up” playlist (auto-generated) and your library only grows…)

You can also purchase tracks that can then be downloaded/burned, whatever.

Omar McFarlane

WHY CAN THEY RELEASE THIS THING WORLDWIDE…I MEAN, PEOPLE IN THE CARIBBEAN LISTEN MUSIC TOO… 🙁 SIGH another great music service that i will never be able to use

Am I the only one who thinks the quality of the songs on mobile is garbage? When wearing headphones all I get is muddy bass and washed out treble. I have tried using DSP manager and FX or whatever the other EQ is. HELP! What am i doing wrong here??? (In settings the quality is set to high). EDIT: I know it’s not my headphones because when i use the power amp app to play tracks it sounds crystal clear.

starnovsky

I found the quality quite good, but without any equalizer. I don’t like the sound with EQ.

Cody

What eq do you recommend.. I still can’t get quality sound /bass like jet audio

Cody

I agree with you. The play music app has “bass roll off” Try jet audio app and see a world of difference.

Guest

Crystal clear when compared to a 320 kb/s mp3 file stored on your phone? You really can’t hear a difference?

You might wanna turn off whatever EQ you have set. Sometimes they can conflict and the end result isn’t too great! Other than that I don’t know what to tell ya! It sounds crystal clear on mine with no noticeable distortion.

S2556

Give us Canadians some love Google!

timrcm

Man, they really blew away Spotify with this. Having used both, Google wins this in the long run hands down. I highly recommend that people try it ASAP.

Minh Ly

Can you share your opinion on what makes this better than Spotify? I tried subscribing to it, but eventually went back to Spotify because of the way Google handles play lists and such. Also I love how I can subscribe to different playlists for both friends and artists.

Jarren

The only thing that really makes it better than Spotify in my opinion is the fact that all of your personally uploaded music follows you wherever you go. This is unlike the spotify phone and web apps where you only have access to a bunch of playlists. You can add music that you didn’t own previously to your library and it all gets integrated nicely. (Think the old Google music app, but now you can add any song you want at whim to your library and play self-created radio stations) With spotify (on the phone and web at least) you only have access to the playlists you’ve created.

Once Google enhances/integrates the shareable/subscribeable playlists then it is a CLEAR winner in my eyes.

BigMixxx

Yup, my playlist is on Volcano right now…

chaoslimits

In the end, I’ve decided against Google All Access because of how faceless the company is. When you have an issue, there’s no one to talk to.

Destro

Ive actually found their tech support to be friendly, quick, and helpful. And there’s many different ways to contact them.

chaoslimits

How exactly do you reach Google Voice tech support? Cos I’ve been trying for a few months.
Thanks

timrcm

Yeah… Google Voice scares me. The lack of updates makes it feel like a Reader or Wave project – one that will one day up and disappear. I’ve been slowly but surely moving people over to my ‘real’ number and moving out of Voice’s ecosystem.

chaoslimits

And that’s why I’m slowly moving out of the Google eco system. I’ve been unable to use my google voice for 1.5 months and the help pages eventually lead to 404s. Buying into Google Music looks like a terrible idea to me. I’ll stick with the other options.

Google Voice was kinda an experimental thing, not a true paid for service!

chaoslimits

I like how you put that in past tense…

r0lct

Good thing they did the trial or I wouldn’t have ever tried it. Never thought I would pay for a music service but the create radio off any song feature has been the key for me. Sooo much better than Pandora.

Gr8Ray

That’s funny, I was about to say their radio service feels like Pandora from 10 years ago – completely disjointed. Mine keeps mixing genre’s like crazy (Mumford and Lumineers on a Macklemore station?), and there’s no way to get a station back on track. You can only thumbs up, or down, and it applies globally, not to just that station. Also, it keeps playing music I’ve already thumbed down. Hopefully they get it straightened out soon.

chris420o

i agree with this…as cool as it is to have the radio feature i feel when i use pandora my station is 50x better they the play access station

r0lct

Settings I switched the setting to 5-star instead of thumbs up/down and I haven’t had any 1-stars repeat yet.
I have had some genre mash-ups, but that I attributed to creating a song from a single song.
But I do agree there is some improvements to be made.

Mallahet

Completely agree. I wanted to check out how big their library was, and so far I’ve been impressed. The music that they don’t have I’m fine with purchasing and uploading.. $8/month to keep all the rest of it is quite nice.

Raven

I went through the 1 month trial and have paid for a second already, but I still find myself using Slacker way more. I find the “DJ curated” stations like “Party Hits” and “Classic Electronic” to have much more of what I am looking for than a simple station based of a songs that are in Google eyes similar to a single song that I pick. Maybe if I could create a station off of a playlist instead of just a single song I might get more of what I am looking for when I want it.

jeff manning

you must torrent like crazy

Jarren

Already subscribed… never in a million years thought i’d say this, but I’m honestly kind of tired of pirating music.

Suggestions for improvements though: Spotify-like share-able playlists, improved/more accurate music discovery, a free model so all of the spotify, iRado and rdio users can try it out w/o having to input any credit card info.

jeff manning

i would really like google to integrate sharing playlists with circles.

starnovsky

I think it does have shareable playlists. At least I managed to subscribe to few.

THIS^^ I used to always get my music through “alternative channels” but lately it has gotten a lot harder to find what I really want (I mainly listen to country with a little bit of electronic dubstep when I’m in the mood). Google’s All Access is really a steal when you consider that you have access to basically any song you want and if you only listened to 7 songs that weren’t yours, you would be saving money compared to buying it through the devil software that is iTunes.

Dustin Wen

It’s cheaper than buying one CD/month

Verizon CEO

Just thinking of all the data overages this will bring is making my wallet tingle!

Seriously? $7.99/month to listen to any music anytime, anywhere? I think it’s a fantastic value. It’s cheaper than any other competing service.

JoshGroff

This^

Although, I stopped my sub because I just don’t have much use for it.

James

That’s how I picture it. I’d rather pay 7.99 a month than have to torrent every album and upload it to Google music.

Makes my life a hell of a lot easier.

monkey082506

Agreed, once you get a letter in the mail about how much you owe the Government and how many years you could spend in jail sh*t gets real. Real fast….so I hear.

brkshr

That’s what VPNs are for

Dustin

I hate to be a grammar Nazi, but you’ve made a little typo, brkshr:

That’s what *All Access is for

starnovsky

Not government – studios

$kew

I have one of those framed in my computer room at home that was sent to my sysadmin at college who then handed it to me back when trading mp3’s was still done via open FTP servers. I shut down my FTP server that I was running out of my server in my dorm room and that was that. The ironic thing was how many bands I discovered from people uploading songs to my server that I then went on to buy more music from once I got a real job.

“listen to any music anytime” is rather stretching it. I tried out the service and their licenses are currently lacking. There are quite a few artists I listen to that aren’t on All Access that are on many other services. Maybe I’ll check again early next year. Even if the price is higher, the extra $2 will be worth them having a fuller library.

phail

If you think that’s steep I guess you won’t ever be using subscription music services as $9.99 (Spotify/Rdio) is the baseline.